Health in Myanmar

Both public and private hospitals are understaffed due to a national shortage of doctors and nurses.

The administration of the healthcare system is distributed between the public and private sectors, in terms of finance and supply.

The Ministry of Health is further divided into six departments which provide healthcare services to the entire population.

[7] When looking at the right to health with respect to children, Myanmar achieves 89.9% of what is expected based on its current income.

[8] In regards to the right to health amongst the adult population, the country achieves only 83.5% of what is expected based on the nation's level of income.

In the report of IHME 2019, Myanmar has observed a drop down since 1990 on various health indicators however it is still high compared to the global average.

The main causes of deaths are post-partum haemorrhage (bleeding), hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (such as eclampsia), consequences of unsafe abortions, and sepsis (a whole-body inflammatory response to infection).

Deaths are significantly higher in rural areas, where women have limited access to reproductive health services.

Most maternal deaths can be prevented through cost-effective interventions such as the presence of skilled birth attendants during deliveries, emergency obstetric care, and access to birth-spacing commodities and services.

The antenatal care coverage rate is 81%, while skilled birth attendants are present at 60 per cent of deliveries.

Ensuring adequate supply of contraceptives and improving quality of birth spacing services are crucial to reducing unintended and unwanted pregnancies and abortions[23] Infant Mortality Rate In 2019, According to world bank data, the infant mortality rate in Myanmar was at about 35.8 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Comparatively, in the year before 93 percent of children aged between 12 and 23 months in Myanmar were immunized against measles.

[5] In 2019, 90 percent of children aged between 12 and 23 months in Myanmar were immunized against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT).

[5] HIV/AIDS recognised as a disease of concern by the Burmese Ministry of Health, is most prevalent among sex workers and intravenous drug users.

[30] Burma (ranked 51 out of 166 countries) has one of Asia's highest adult HIV prevalence rates, following Cambodia and Thailand.

This is largely due to the endemic use of drugs, which are farmed, manufactured and distributed, in the northern regions of the country.

Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS) strategy was introduced in 1997 and it covered all the townships since November 2003.

This indicates the emphasis on case holding activities all over the country in collaboration with 32 implementing partners including ethnic health organizations.

[33] The findings from large scale sequential studies showed slight declining trends of stunting, underweight and wasting among under-five children from 2010 to 2018, however the under nutrition remains one of the public health problems for under-five children in Myanmar.

[34] Yet the malaria burden in Myanmar remains the highest among the six countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion, and an early warning sign of artemisinin resistance – delayed parasite clearance – has been reported in several parts of the country.

[34] Analysis of the age and the sex distribution of malaria cases shows that the majority of cases occur in adult males, reflecting the risk associated with occupations such as mining, rubber tapping, construction, and forest-related activities.